Eco-Friendly Solvent-Processed Fullerene-Free Polymer Solar Cells with over 9.7% Efficiency and Long-Term Performance Stability

A wide-bandgap polymer, (poly[(2,6-(4,8-bis(5-(2-ethylhexyl)thiophen-2-yl)-benzo[1,2-b:4,5-b']dithiophene))-alt-(2,5-(methyl thiophene carboxylate))]) (3MT-Th), is synthesized to obtain a complementary broad range absorption when harmonized with 3,9-bis(2-methylene-(3-(1,1-dicyanomethylene)-indanone))-5,5,11,11-tetrakis(4-hexylphenyl)-dithieno[2,3-d:2',3'-d']-s-indaceno[1,2-b:5,6-b']dithiophene (ITIC). The synthesized regiorandom 3MT-Th polymer shows good solubility in nonhalogenated solvents. A film of 3MT-Th:ITIC can be employed for forming an active layer in a polymer solar cell (PSC), with the blend solution containing toluene with 0.25% diphenylether as a nonhalogenated additive. The corresponding PSC devices display a power conversion efficiency of 9.73%. Moreover, the 3MT-Th-based PSCs exhibit excellent shelf-life time of over 1000 h and are operationally stable under continuous light illumination. Therefore, methyl thiophene-3-carboxylate in 3MT-Th is a promising new accepting unit for constructing p-type polymers used for high-performance nonfullerene-type PSCs.